


Things Known and Unknown

by OracleGlass



Category: Constantine (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OracleGlass/pseuds/OracleGlass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John muses on probabilities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Known and Unknown

Of course, I know exactly how this will all turn out. She's gone – off to the East Coast, or maybe parts more distant, with a dangerous little parcel in her carry-on luggage and a light of holy mission in her eyes. She kissed me on the cheek and started to say thanks, but stopped, because she could tell it was a stupid thing to say. Thanks, John, for ripping off the thin veil that covers reality and showing me the endless horrors beneath it. Thanks, John, for showing me that there are worlds out there that I never even dreamed of, and every last one of them is a shitty place full of shitty people.

Even at this early stage, I can tell that she's not destined to become one of those sad stories you hear whispered throughout my little community of peers. I've seen enough of both kinds to tell. She'll be successful – she won't go mad with the responsibility – there's iron in her backbone. Maybe it grew there when she became a cop. Maybe it happened the first time she killed somebody.

So many of us head right for the bottle and dive in, hoping to drown out those small, secret whispers that begin as soon as the first flush of triumph from using your gift starts to fade. After you start to feel the chill that sets in. If the rush doesn't get you, the fear will, and then you're as fucked as Father Hennessy, poor old sot.

No, she'll be a Mata Hari, no doubt about it. She'll slide under the gate of Hell and return with a line of souls behind her like pearls on a string. Her eyes will shine brightly and I won't be able to meet them.

When she returns, she's going to call me. Coffee, probably – or maybe she'll surprise me and suggest getting a beer together. I'm going to hang up on her. I can't afford another icy presence in an otherwise empty room. I've got too many of those already.

Of course, I know all this is bullshit. If she calls, I'll answer. I'll drink her goddamn coffee, wishing it had a healthy belt of whisky in it. I'll watch her mouth as she talks. I'll see the shapes move in her eyes, and I'll put my hand on her wrist, or my fingers in her hair. That's what I want. It's not even the fact that she's gorgeous, in that drowning saint way. Power just rises off her skin. I can smell it. It's like a forest fire and I want to burn inside it.

I may not be the idiot kid I was once, brash and loud and willing to consign anyone to Hell itself, as long as I got my jollies. For years, the final traces I left in my friend's lives were the footprints I made as I walked away from their corpses. But fuck, just because I'm old now doesn't mean I'm safe. These days, I may think before I spit into the abyss, but that doesn't mean she won't get torn apart by whatever comes up after me. The old addictions haven't faded away, how could they ever fade away? The cigs, the booze – none of it compares to riding the razor edge.

Her brown eyes and delicate wrists aren't going to be enough to keep me away. Kit could tell her all about that.

She has the gift and the guts to back it up. But I know she'll try to ride that line with me, and it'll be me that gets her killed. And then all I'll have left when I close my eyes is the crisp rustle of her hair, somewhere past the margin of sleep.


End file.
